CubaPartOne

CUBA TRAVEL DIARY

BY JOHN HELD, JR.

A PRELUDE:

Friday, January 13, 1995:

Ray Johnson drowns in Sag Harbour, Long Island, New York under mysterious circumstances. Received visa from Cuba from the Cuba Interest Section in Washington, and travel documents from Marazul by Federal Express. Fax Cuban visa to Marazul. Lunch with Shermakaye Bass and then interviewed by her for a forthcoming article in the Dallas Morning News. Mail from Chris Dodge, Pete Fischer, Henning Mittendorf (Germany), Artpool (Hungary), Nobody's Wife, Kalinberg (Russia) Art Museum mail art show catalog and poster.

Saturday, January 14, 1994:

Carol Pittore (Bowhamdown, Maine) leaves message on my answering machine concerning the DEATH OF RAY JOHNSON of drowning at Sag Harbour beach. M. B. Corbett (Prescott Park, PA) calls to talk about the same. Michael mentions that in talking to him a week ago on the phone Ray announced the death of the New York Correspondence School Bunny. Mail from Michel Pollard (Korea), Bones, Mark Hamilton, Shozo Shimamoto and Giovanni Strada (Japan), Brunno (France), Davi Det Hompson, Jeanie Hughes. Call Gaglione (San Francisco) about Johnson. E. Z. Smith (Fresno, California) calls. FaGaGaGa (Youngstown, Ohio) calls.

Sunday, January 15, 1995:

Call Honoria in Austin, who gives me final Internet message from Abelardo Mena. Start packing for Cuba.

Monday, January 16, 1994:

Buy photocopier toner cartridge to bring Abelardo Mena in Cuba. Talk to Gaglione. Details of Johnson's death.

Tuesday, January 17, 1995 (Dallas-Cancun):

Every trip has a first step - a spark that ignites and starts things moving forward. Historically this trip began with a letter from Abelardo Mena, the Curator of Foreign Art at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, Cuba, seeking information on Modern Realism Gallery in September 1993. From that point we marched forward in tandem, planning and organizing a mail art show for the National Museum, leading to my invitation to attend the opening in January 1995.

The initial letter began a year long effort at planning the exhibit under less than ideal circumstances because of the relations between our respective countries. The relationship between Abelardo Mena and myself was truly a grassroots diplomacy that overcame a wealth of bureaucratic obstacles. In the end we prevailed - due in part from our leap from the postal service, which refuses direct service between Cuba and the United States, to Internet.

This, however, there is a poetical prelude that precedes this journey. Four days ago Ray Johnson died by drowning off a beach on the North Shore of Long Island. There is no way to date with any certainty when Johnson began doing mail art, but his postal activities were written about at least as early as 1955 in the inaugural issue of the Village Voice. Since then he has been personally and spiritually responsible for the growth of mail art from New York artworld in-joke to global interaction on a massive scale. My last Internet message with Abelardo indicated that some 650 artists from 41 countries had contributed to the Havana exhibit, the first in a National Museum of Fine Arts. There is no doubt in my mind that Ray Johnson -his life, work, and recent death- has become the metaphor lurking behind this show.

On Saturday January 14th, the spark ignited with a phone message from Carlo Pittore calling from Bowdoinham, Maine informing me that Johnson had been found dead. The circumstances pointed toward suicide. Successive phone calls were quickly received from M. B. Corbett in Pennsylvania, Fa Ga Ga Ga in Ohio, and E. Z. Smith in California. The network was abuzz with activity. Honoria heard about it on Internet from Crackerjack Kid. Guy Bleus faxed a message to Bill Gaglione from Belgium trying to learn more about the recent demise of the Network's founding father.

And here I am, four days later, leaving on a plane from Dallas to Cancun, the staging point for the adventure of my life, having been granted a rare look into Cuban society. When I first approached Abelardo Mena about a mail art exhibition at the National Museum, my intention was also to travel there for the opening, lecture on mail art, and perform - much as I have done in other countries from Argentina to Yugoslavia.

Little did I know how difficult this task would be. When I began looking into Cuban travel requirements in June 1994, I was told I needed a visa from the Cuban government. As the National Museum was sponsoring my trip, I thought this would have been fairly easy to obtain. Only upon my return from Eastern Europe in November did I learn that the rules has been changed, and it was now necessary to obtain a license from the United States Treasury Department office of Foreign Assets Control, in addition to the visa from the Cubans. After sending a letter of application and supporting material to the Treasury Department, I met with very little cooperation. I contacted Sharon Birmingham, who was on the staff of my Congressman, John Bryant, who ran interference with the legislative liaison person at the Treasury Department for me. She explained that they couldn't do anything I couldn't do on my own, but that they could do it faster. Still, it wasn't until the first week of January that the license was obtained. And I failed to get one for Stanley and Wendy Marsh, my art patrons, who had contributed to the trip financially. Despite their considerable resources they were denied permission because of a lack of research credentials and specific interest in Cuba.

It took longer to receive my Cuban visa. That was received on January 13. It took constant calls to speed the process along, despite a letter supporting my trip from the International Relations officer of the National Council of Visual Artists in Cuba, who Mena had arranged for an official invitation.

With visa and license in hand I was now flying to Cuba legally, one of only two-thousand Americans to visit in this manner. My first stop is Cancun, where I will stay overnight to catch my flight to Havana the following day. Having had a choice to fly from either Miami or Cancun, I choose Cancun because of its proximity to Dallas.

I arrive in Cancun around 3:00 PM. I check my large bag and another containing Stamp Francisco rubber stamps for the Museum workshop, and a Canon photocopy cartridge, which Abelardo request via Internet, at the airport. I take a shuttle downtown to the Caribe Plaza Cancun. Go out around 7:00PM for dinner (guacamole, quesadilla, flan). Back to the hotel and turn in early.

Wednesday, January 18, 1995 (Cancun and Havana):

Wake up call at 6:30AM. Breakfast at the hotel. Taxi to airport. Check in at 9:00AM at Cubana Airlines ticket counter.

The first thing I notice at the ticket counter is the disportionate similarity of luggage being checked through. Is this my first taste of socialist economics? I've read that in Cuba it's not diversity that's important, but that everyone is provided for on an equal basis. The luggage is the first hint I see of this. The "sameness" seems exotic to me. Cuba has been a closed society to Americans for so long that it is a mystery for us.

Yesterday when I arrived at the airport in Cancun, I went to the Cubana Airlines office and picked up two Cuban travel magazines. The fact that they contained glossy advertisements for hotels, restaurants, and resorts surprised me. Americans paint Cuba with a monotone palette. To see it in realistic colors was a shock. But I didn't want to be influenced by tourist propaganda, and I left the magazines behind. I want my first impressions of the country to be formed by my own experiences, not those of an travel agency. I am prepared for everything and anything.

While waiting for the noon flight to Havana, I talk to a reporter and photographer from Minneapolis, who have come without a Treasury license. It seems that it is an easy matter to obtain a Cuban tourist visas for around $20 (my official one cost $50) and obtain booking on anyone of a number of airlines flying Havana. The Cubans, wanting American dollars, don't stamp your passport so there is no record of travel there. It seems a simple enough matter for Americans to enter illegally.

After a 45 minute flight from Cancun to Havana I pass through Cuban customs and passport control without incident or having my bags checked. In fact, the customs declaration form I've filled out is never collected. The couple from Minneapolis go through an extra step because of their manner of entry. A representative from Marazul Tours, through which I have booked my travel and hotel arrangements, directs me to a bus that will take me to the Havana Libre hotel.

I have an interesting conversation on the shuttle bus with an American from San Diego who tells me without hesitation that he is a smuggler. He brings in California wines (he will be meeting a boat bringing them in from Cancun tomorrow), and takes out cigars and rum. He buys $10,000 worth of cigars and sells them for $30,000 to a private cliental in California. He offers me some insight and advise on practical matters (so many people on the street because there is 50% unemployment; the bicycle is the family car; food shortages) and we bid each other farewell.

I check in at the Habana Libra hotel and take a shower. I start to walk to the National Museum but soon get turned around and head back to the hotel to take a taxi. One thing on my short walk becomes clear: there are beautiful homes but in terrible repair. They come to represent what I will later come to call the squalid grandeur of Cuba. Lots of people on the street because of high unemployment, and not many cars. I assume because of the gasoline shortages and prices.

I take a taxi to the National Museum of Belles Artes near the Old Havana section where there is a big reception in progress. I've come looking for Abelardo Mena, but he is not there. I leave a note with him with a staff member (who later turns out to be Carmen). While I've gone into the Museum the taxi has waited for me. It's a private car, an old fifties Jaguar. We go back to the other side of the downtown area to find Banco de Ideas Z. The BIZ is in a private apartment in a three-story building. There I find Abelardo and some other group members. Abelardo and I like each other right away, and I feel very comfortable as I am offered coffee and review some of the 700 pieces of mail that have arrived for the exhibition. We have tea and talk. The leader of BIZ, Ludovico, whose apartment it is, arrives after a walk back from the Museum, where he attended the opening. It seems like an impossibly far walk to me, but he says (in Spanish, interpreted by Abelardo, who speaks perfect English) it took only forty minutes. We feel a certain kinship as we are exactly the same age (47). Abelardo is perhaps ten years younger.

Abelardo and I walk several blocks to his house along a quite street. He says its quiet because everyone is watching Brazilian soap operas, but I find throughout my stay that generally the streets are always quiet because of the lack of car traffic and the disciplined street behavior of the Cuban people in general. It's a far cry from my own neighborhood where the car traffic never stops and the Mexicans think nothing of working on their cars and turning the radio up loud. All the stores are closed. It's about 9:00PM. We feed Abelardo's dog Toby. He lives alone in a nice size apartment. It's his parents apartment, which he usually shares with them, but they have gone to Miami some months ago. They are there with his sister who moved to Florida in 1981. This has afforded Abelardo some measure of privacy, and even some unexpected extras, because he still receives his parents food allotment. For instance, the Cuban people are allotted three rolls a day, but Abelardo receives nine rolls. With the extra he receives, he gives to the family next door, whose wife prepares meals for him in return. It's a barter system, and I suspect that alot of this goes on.

We go back to BIZ where we eat spaghetti. After some talk on mail art, our activities at the museum, and the Cuban situation, a young musician from San Diego stops by. He is staying with a girl, Daysi, who used to be active in the BIZ and lives down the hallway. He is studying drumming, especially in the Santarian Afro-Cuban religion.

Abelardo and I walk back to the hotel. It's about a half hour walk, and we arrive at midnight. Then bed after a long day.

Thursday, January 19, 1995 (Havana):

Toast and coffee for breakfast at the cafeteria of the Havana Libra. It's an old Hilton Hotel, managed by the gangster Meyer Lansky. Then checkout and take a taxi to Banco de Ideas Z. Meet Abelardo and wait for the daughter of the National Museum Director to take us and the mail art to the Museum. When we arrive, I meet some of the Museum staff, including the Director, Lucy Villegas Oria, to whom I give a copy of the Mail Art Bibliography and a rubber stamp commemorating the exhibition, which Gaglione has made up for me based on the design Juan Carlos did for the exhibition invitation logo. Take a look at the exhibition space. Abelardo introduces me to the director of the Museum Library and I'm given a tour. She knows a number of American art librarians because the IFLA conference (International Art Librarians) conference was there last summer. Ableardo and I do an interview for radio with a press relations person for the Museum, Carmen. She questions me on: What is mail art? What makes this show special? Is it a larger show than usual? What are current art trends in America (multi-culturalism, arts activism)? Is there Cuban art in Dallas (mention the "Sixty Years of Cuban Art" in Dallas, the University of Texas Press book "New Art in Cuba")? My travels, embargo art. Am I afraid of controversy (no, mail art is communication, better understanding between cultures)?

We go to the workshop across the street where restoration work is done, and we talk to the artists making signs for the mail art show. Eat a sandwich at the nearby Plaza Hotel. There is a rock group tuning up in the courtyard of the National Museum for a concert that evening. I find that pretty unusual. We leave at 3:00 and walk along the Malacon back to Banco de Ideas Z. About seven people are there sitting around when a "special period" occurs - a blackout. Out come the kerosene lamps to light our conversation, and I must say that although it is inconvenient, and of course the refrigerator is off too, it is really romantic to sit around in the flickering light. We sit around drinking the Southern Comfort that I've brought with me. Juan Carlos comes over. He's the person with whom I've been communicating with on Internet. He's young , about thirty. A really nice person. Sleep at BIZ that evening on an extra bed in Ludovico's bedroom.

Friday, January 20, 1994 (Havana):

Wake up about 9:30AM, oversleeping a bit. Abelardo is waiting for me. Quick coffee and we go to a bus stop to get to the National Museum. We are suppose to meet Sandra - one of the collective's members, at 10:00. But we wait at the bus stop without success. There are buses that come by, but they are full and only unload a few people. There are many waiting at the bus stop and the line moves very slowly. Cubans are really good about queuing up and waiting for things. It's all very politely done. There is a word that means, "Are the last in line?" This is constantly uttered, and once one finds the last person in line, you can stand somewhere nearby, not necessarily directly in back of the person. So there are always several lines of people waiting at any one place, but there is always an internal order unfolding, and throughout my stay I never see the slightest argument over one's place in line. It's very much an artform, just as lining up in Italy is pure chaos.

But we have to move on to a second bus stop, because it looks impossible at the first. No luck there either. After a wait, we move on to a third bus stop. Again no luck. The line moves very slow. There's just too many people wanting for too little public transportation. There's one bus that has two buses connected, and there is a dip between the two cars at the connecting point. The Cubans call it the camel, and the members of the Bank always threaten me with taking it. It's always jammed full like the Tokyo subway. It's no wonder some, like Ludovico, never take the bus, but always walk.

When we have no success at the third bus stop I suggest we walk to the Habana Libre and take a taxi. I love walking in the streets of Havana. So quite. Little car traffic. Abelardo calls Cuba the Holland of the Caribbean - there's so many bikes. At the Hotel Abelardo seeks out a unlicensed cab driver. These are people who use the family car to get some extra income, especially dollars from tourists. An official cab would have cost five dollars to go to the Museum from the hotel, but Abelardo arranges one for two dollars. So finally we arrive at the Museum at 11:45, nearly two hours late. It's almost impossible to do anything on time in Cuba. First there is the unreliable transportation. Then there is the matter of phone service, which seems to have all sorts of problems. Abelardo says that when it rains, the phones don't work. At the very best it seems that sometimes the operators put through calls, and sometimes they don't. There doesn't seem to be any reason behind any of it. None that I can discover. And then there are periodical blackouts. So if you are going to be late you can't call to tell anyone. No, it doesn't matter. Everybody assumes you'll be late anyway.

So we arrive at the Museum late. And Sandra isn't there. But we begin to hang the show by laying out the boundaries of where the material will be hung. I push-pin string around the walls of the room about three feet from the floor and seven feet high. It's a large room, and we will be able to hang alot of material. And there is alot of material. More than any other previous mail art show that I know of. Eight-hundred participants from 44 countries, and more contributions arriving every day. After we lay out the boundaries of where the artwork will hang, I sit on a seat in the middle of the room and sort the material. I create separate piles for artist postage stamps, publications, and work that will be hung by the Bank members, who are eager to assist. The artist stamps and publications will be presented separately in cases placed in the middle of the room. We do this until 2:00PM and accomplish a great deal. The members of the Bank are great workers and really excited about what they are seeing and doing. I've done this numerous times before and am grateful for the help.

We all walk from the Museum several blocks to the headquarters of the Young Communist Party, where the members of Banco de Ideas Z meet with Fernando, the art coordinator. The Bank is in a very unusual position in the Cuban art world. They appear to be the only independent art group in the country. the rest are under the direct supervision of the Communist Party or the State. The Bank uses the Young Communist Party as an umbrella for their activities, but they don't report to the organization directly. Indeed, the Bank is fighting against the current tide of Cuban art, which is trying to gain access to the market, and most of the Cuban artists are trying to make their art as commercial as possible. The BIZ on the other hand, is trying to treat art as a non-commodity, and therefore finds mail art a perfect vehicle for their ideas. It's really ironical. A person comes from the United States, the hotbed of Capitalism, to explain a non-commercial alternative artform like mail art to a socialist society that is rejecting the communal aspect of art for a market economy.

We have rum and tomato juice with cheese sandwiches as Ludovico acts as the spokesman for the group. It's an all too typical meeting - boring. I'm glad in this case I don't know Spanish. There are about ten or so at the meeting: Abelardo Mena, Ludovico, Sandra Rodriquez Rivalta, Carmen Cintra Romeu, Juan Carlos Herrera Veranco, Jorge Alejandro Camacho, Rodolfo Arrondel Lopez, Jacqueline Mir Gomez, Ana Leonor Fernandez Parra. It's really difficult for me to keep up with everyone's name, but eventually I get a sense of all the personalities involved in the group. Ludovico is the obvious leader. The group meets at his apartment. During my stay they are there constantly, but under normal circumstances there is only a formal Wednesday meeting to discuss current and future events, with informal gatherings on other occasions.

After the meeting Abelardo and I take a bus back from Old Havana to Ludovico's apartment. The other members have taken their bikes back and are there to meet us. Another blackout-another "special period" - a phrase Fidel Castro used to explain the difficult times after the loss of Soviet sponsorship. I'm told that this happens most Thursday and Friday evenings.

I take a nap and Abelardo goes home. He returns at 9:00PM and we walk to a Chinese restaurant near the Miramar District. I've asked him to pick a restaurant he wanted to eat at. I have a nice soup, lobster chow mein, ice cream and tea. The cost comes to $40 for the two of us. Walk back to Banco de Ideas Z. Ludovico shows me a book he has done about five years ago, "Porgque mi Tiempi-Tine que ser Bello." It's very unusual in that it contains envelopes, and other inserted paper objects, like the messages one hangs over the doorknob in a hotel. Unfortunately, it's the only copy he has, as the others were destroyed by mistake. Ludovico used to work in a publishing house - April Publishers- and it's there that he gained the talents and ideas that became the Banco de Ideas Z in late 1993. There is a letter to him from Felipe Ehrenberg displayed in his apartment. I know Ehrenburg by reputation. He is a prominent Mexican alternative artist, who founded Beau Geste Press in England in the early seventies and designed the Fluxshoe catalog. If Ludovico has contacts with Ehrenburg, he is no isolated talent, but well-connected and knowledgeable of contemporary art.

I turn in early, because I'm catching a cold.

Saturday, January 21, 1995 (Havana):

Next week will be a busy, but as Abelardo says, "this is a free day." I wake up with a cold but am determined to fight it. I'm sleeping in the same room as Ludovico on a rather hard bed, but it's perfect. The apartment is not large: a living room, a studio, a bedroom, small kitchen and bathroom. It gets crowded when all the member are here and the bikes are lined up wherever they can fit. But it's filled with art and good will. That counts for alot.

Juan Carlos comes over to take me around the city on his bike. He's the person in the group with the interest in telecommunications and has been the go-between on Internet for Abelardo and myself. Actually Juan Carlos sends to Honoria in Austin, Texas, and then she calls to tell me the message. Then I digest it, call her back, and then she goes back over Internet to Juan Carlos. It turns out Juan Carlos has no dedicated computer, but has a portable modem, and when he goes to an institution (like the Young Communist Party building) that has a computer with Internet capability he plugs into both the computer and the phone line to send the message. It's a real guerilla communication maneuver. Juan Carlos is the Ch� of Internet.

I get on the back of Juan Carlos's bike, and we go across town toward the Museum in Old Havana to the house of his girlfriend. She's not there, but we are greeted by her mother, and she makes some coffee for us. It's a real nice house. The patio is filled with different types of cactus. Havana is lush, with palm trees everywhere. When one walks down the streets in the evening you can smell the sweetness of the flowers. It's alot like La Plata, Argentina, this scent in the air, and brings back memories of my visit there with Graciela G. Marx.

Juan Carlos and I leave the bike behind at the house and walk several blocks to a street fair where craftspeople are selling leather goods, paintings, tortoise shell jewelry, and woodwork with the saying s of Ch�. I buy some souvenirs, and we walk to the Nacional Hotel - the best in Cuba. It's near the Battle of the Maine memorial on the Malacon. After that we walk back to the house to get Juan's bike and we go to Miramar in West Havana, where there are some lovely homes that are now kept up as embassies and the headquarters for different companies and residences for the executives.

Come back to Banco de Ideas Z at 3:00PM and rest till 5:00. Have tea and begin essay for the exhibition catalog that BIZ will be printing. Have a nice dinner of rice, omelette, fried bananas, lettuce and tomato. Abelardo comes over and we walk to his house to watch some television. Television in Cuba is just on in the evenings from six to ten on weekdays. We watch a show from a Havana studio that features singers and comedians with an audience. I keep working on the catalog essay.

Walk back to BIZ with Abelardo. Sleep.

Continue to Part II